and such a public health issue in detroit and boston, new york and cleveland. but a budget-cutting congress led by southern democrats were like, nope, we're not going to do that. we just need to keep on putting money into south vietnam, right? so not a great answer. [laughter] but i think it's where we are right now. .. how nationally there was a lack

of awareness of chicano poverty but it is even bigger on the east coast. there was such a tremendous ignorance about even the existence of chicano americans. and other reactions to kingstaff. in atlanta the first ideas that precede the king museum was institute for the black world or in durham, it was mostly white, but black-and-white coalition, and in the east coast in d.c. but was there an upshot for the chicano movement, even though the was a poor people stats campaign. >> one of the central arguments of the book is a building block, it is still rather nascent.

it is not well known cause of power in washington or new york or the east coast. and it raise the profile at the coming level. and the washington post is one of the few national newspapers that covers mexican-american, puerto rican, native american presence at all. most of the media do not. if you look at the new york times you wouldn't know they are there. if you look at the boston globe you wouldn't know they are there. it risks a profile for them and connect them to each other and traditional civil-rights circles and porter reconnect of tests and there were not that many chicano activists concentrated in the southwest, calif. some in

seattle and contingent in chicago and wisconsin and because of harvesting migration. puerto ricans in new york between them and then opportunity to hook up and now we have latino, that wasn't the term. and the constructions we use today. there is no question raises the profile but to a certain extent, because the attention they want from the national media was there. concerned about the meal train and the symbols that folks have been covering the civil rights movement for years were more comfortable with. and i don't know what is going on with these other folks, and

sad and funny moments, and supreme court protests, there was a man if we could flip a backwards to that. the guy with the glasses on the left, his name is hain't adams. american indian activists, washington post labels him as a white activist interested in indian rights. and to identify these folks if they weren't black or white, by mary was so persistent abinary t weston was different.

the chicano community and african-american community, more knowledge. in the east, where you have federal officials setting policy or the national media organization dictating, what people are reading. and what historians are working on taking the generation to pay attention to these multiracial relationships in not biracial way. >> it seems to me there was a blueprint, and it does put out civil-rights, and when you talk about civil-rights. and i don't think anyone else could have done that.

>> there were other moments when there were efforts, black, brown and multiracial efforts, and high-profile -- a flawed attempts, the king was trying to do this, really interesting legacy of his life that we have forgotten generally. that is a great comment. questions or comments? okay. thank you so much for coming. appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> for more information visit the author's website, gordonm t gordonmantl gordonmantler.com.

>> for all of us in the colorado river basin or watershed, we are talking about somewhere between thirty-five million, and forty million people now in the united states and new mexico, all depends, we all depend on the colorado river, our basic water source. we need it for everything, municipal use, drink, we need it for our houses, our industry, mining, and most importantly the biggest water user out here is agriculture. we can't grow anything without it. for it is considered to be the most litigated river in the world and that is probably very accurate. more lawsuits, compact, laws to regulate what is collectively known as the law of the river. probably 13, 15 major laws that have spanned the 20th century to the present time, talks about who gets how much of its water

and who can take it, how much every year, how to share it, and our relationship with mexico and the water as well. >> booktv and american history tv for the history of literary life of mesa, arizona today at noon eastern on booktv. and sunday at 5:00 on american history tv on c-span3. >> joan johnson -- joan johnson-freese on booktv argues the system is broken and no longer properly educate our senior military officers. it is a little under an hour. >> thank you. it is of pleasure to be here in cambridge on this rainy night during harvard spring break. i thank you for having this opportunity to talk about this book which i am passionate about. i am passionate about professional military education

which is why i wrote this book which is out of my field. my usual arc of research is in safe security and globalization so this is a bit of deviation but when i felt was important to write about. i wanted to tell you what the topic is and why i wrote about it. professional military education is the system in which most military officers received their education after enlistment. congressional mandated. this is not a choice, not an option. all are required to receive what is called joint professional military education credit. specifically in the book i am talking about war colleges, the most senior of the institutions where the officers of the captain and the colonel level attend when they are transitioning from very operational positions where they fly planes, drive boats, drive

tanks into strategic positions where they will be in washington making critical policy decisions. we at the war college see it as our job to a decayed them from jobs which have been focused on training that they're very good at. no one is better at these operational jobs that our american military officers to jobs they are not so familiar with in strategic areas that involve economics, policy, require knowledge of cultural differences, religion and really are out of the norm, education questions that don't necessarily carry with them yes or no answer, the officers are very used to when they are operating nuclear reactors or flying planes. that being said, i contend in the book that officers in the country to do the best job possible at transitioning them from these operational to strategic positions and the week in fact do better.

that because of structural and systemic issues we really are not serving our officers as well as we might to prepare them for future jobs and the country and we could do a much better job and i would like to read to you a couple paragraphs here from of the book that in a nutshell explain the issue. consider as you read how would you feel as a parent if your son or daughter asked you to pay between $57,000 and $166,000 which is the range of cost per student at the war colleges for him or her to attend a graduate program where there are no academic admission standards and everyone graduates in ten months? unless the war colleges at the military equivalent of where the children are above-average statistically everyone

graduating from an accelerated rigorous graduate program where there are no addition standards is highly unlikely. further, this program will constantly make sure she is happy with what they are being taught from a faculty, some of whom have neither teaching experience no subject matter expertise. you might have qualms about the educational value of the program. so what are these challenges and what might we do to fix them? i contend in the book there are things we could do that are not particularly difficult but are not being done because in -- there's a default to the way we always done it. the first problem i talk about, the students come in nevada congressional demand dated. many of them are eager to learn, many of them are very anxious to make this transition.

some are not. there are no academic admissions standards. some of these individuals have not written a paper in 20 plus years. they're very good at what they do but they are not particularly good students in some cases. because they're very good at their operational jobs, and government has spent sometimes millions of dollars to train them they happen to be pilots or nuclear fields or highly specialized fields derek is requirement that they all graduate. no military officer will be failed and their career ruined because of an academic program and when they attend the war college they get two degrees, one is the joint professional military education degree which again is congressional mandated. the second, they all received a master's degree in national

security study. everyone who comes and gets a master's degree. that means the student works very hard and sitting next to the student who doesn't work that hard they're both going to graduate. that is not their fault. that is not a problem of their making. that the military equivalent of being too big to fail, valuable to the military and the country to fail in an academic program so you have a system where coming in the credibility of the program is stretched because there are no failures. occasionally you will have someone who because of family issues or some other issue will complete the program in time and there simply recycled. academically i have been teaching professional military education for 20 years now and i have never given a final grade

of ac. is just not given. hour range of grades is basically from 84 to 94. why did i write this book? i am saying things that are critical of my own institution. the second point this gets to is the faculty. we have very strong faculty in many areas and the faculty is very diverse. there are active-duty military officers, there are practitioners which include a high percentage of retired military officers, there are civilian academics and there are civilian academics who are very active in their own professional fields. i make a differentiation very carefully. what happens very often is we will have a military officer show up to be a faculty member who left -- last week was on a ship or flying a plane and next week teaching economics or political science or history or

some topic which he will work very hard at but doesn't have any substantive background in and because he doesn't have a background necessarily in the classroom the institution goes out of its way to give them ample opportunity to get good at teaching. they give them more classes to give them an opportunity to practice and get better at what they are doing but that means the stronger experienced teachers who do have background in the field, we don't eat as much. when they do get good usually after two years, then they are gone and we start this all over again. so you have a student body with no academic admission standards, a faculty which is very diverse, everyone is well meaning but some have substantive background and others don't and this is all

being run by an increasingly large bureaucracy, most of whom have no background in either education or educational administration. this creates basically a situation, i use the example in the book, like putting me in charge of a helicopter squad. i would be very well meaning but i don't know what i am doing. therefore my job, nobody fly, everybody be careful, we have a great safety record here. what happens in education is a default position of the as conservative as possible, keep everybody happy. as a teacher is not your job to keep people happy. your job is to challenge them, to really get the students -- i don't like this expression but works, to think outside the box. what happens at the war colleges

as well is faculty, unlike civilian academic institution are not tenured. they are not on a tenured track, they are usually on three or four year contracts. these contracts to a very large degree renewal of these contracts depends on do the students like you? what does that do in the classroom? you don't challenge of the students because it becomes imperative that they like you. i am very fortunate. and the college president, merit based program, policy of granting tenure to a small number of people and i am the equivalence of tenured, contract without terms. at about the same time you receive this equivalent, there

are a lot of retired professionals faculty members. much to my dismay, they were all lined by fellow faculty members and institutions as disgruntled. and i didn't see it that way. because i was tenured i decided to write a book about it. this is the resulting book. this is the resulting book which i am pleased to say started out, and new media has been beneficial in getting this topic discussed. i started out writing blogger articles for a o l defense and u.s. naval institute, i then wrote an article for orbits and there was a lot of controversy. sometimes not brought to me directly and then i wrote the

book had and i'm very appreciative to the naval war college for the academic freedom it very much supports that allows me to write the book, talk about the book, and to relieve voice my opinion. this is something the naval war college to me of all the military professional military education of the war colleges and there is an army war college and air war college and marine war college and national defense university, naval war college, of those i consider the naval war college where i am a faculty by a member to be a flag ship academic institution because of its strong defense of academic freedom and increasing willingness to go out and find faculty who are willing to kind of be in house heretics and i am always very careful on occasions like this to say when i'm talking i'm talking for myself.

i'm not representing the government or government positions but being able to do that is something that is not always the case at all of the other institutions so i took advantage of my position as a tenured faculty member to write this book. one of the things i talked about extensively in this book going back to administrators, most of the administrators are retired military officers. very well-meaning patriots, good americans that no background in education, no background in academic administration. that means the things they are being asked to do, curriculum development, hiring faculty, promoting faculty, tenure in faculty, they have never done before with. i spent eight years at the naval war college as a department chair and we would spend a great

deal of time in meetings trying to explain to those in charge how things were done in academia. very often, most often, the response was we are not in academia, that is not how we do it which got us into a system of again when i first started working at the war college, everyone, every faculty member was hired as a full professor. in an environment where they are so rank conscious, the idea of hiring people all faculty members as full professor was unheard of to us and it hurt the institutional credibility, trying to explain that to a colonel why they should not inherently be a full professor fell on deaf ears. the problem of having administrators who have no experience is, i think, part of

the problem. the other parts of the problem and i will be honest, i am writing a follow-on chapter with another former department chair from the naval war college, we are doing a book chapters that looks at what is the oversight? what is the supervision? there are two basically supervising organizations, something called military education coordinating council. the military of acronyms and congress and part of the pentagon called the j 7, part of the joint staff. congress is busy. we all know sequestration is taking up all of their time. the economy. that allows those in the pentagon and those that the military coordinating council to basically ignore what i have been told they consider the

malaise, the noise that this book raises and other articles raise and things proceed pretty much the way they always have. it is my view that we can do some things that will correct the situation. the first thing i think we need to do is to separate the congressional mandated military education program from the master's degree. officers who came in and many have a master's degree, they feel they don't need a master's degree would come in and simply fulfill their congressional me mandated requirements but those who wanted a master's degree would sign up on a separate program and it would be a more rigorous program where there was an opportunity to say you have not met the academic qualifications, and they wouldn't perceive the master's

degree. and getting rid of that 100% graduation rate, a fact credibility. the second thing we need to do is have some sort of faculty tenure program. faculty are not constantly fearful that they will lose their job if the students aren't happy with them. there is a big push back from substantial portion, a tenured faculty creates debt would. it is ironic to me that this is being said by individuals who in their own career when you reach a certain point in the military you have an expectation that you will continue until you reach your retirement point. that is the same argument for faculty members. furthermore, this will not be done immediately, it is done the same way as the civilian academic institutions, when we

have a trial period. there would be six or seven years to see the faculty active in their profession. are they solid teachers? and the administrative vote and qualification of administrators in charge of these very important programs. and and and with all the economic goals in washington. and will be seen as an engine and the. it is critical and something we need to do more of, not less of. i mentioned the figures from 50,000 to $156,000 per student. why the big differentiation? i would argue that newfor does it right. we have one building and one faculty which actually teaches

two courses. we teach the war college senior course and intermediate course called command and staff college. the air force and the army have two schools and two faculties to teach each. that would be an easy cost savings to combine them. the naval war college as well, we don't have regional study strips which are nice two or three trips where we take students and show the regions they have studied. very costly, you don't learn anything in a two week jumped into paris and let's be realistic here. it is important that we really work on the credibility of the program. is important to the institution, it is important to the student, it is important to build up rigor in ways that don't just involved metrics. the department chair on a regular basis. i was asked by the navy to

provide metrics for their return on investment for -- this is where we get into differentiation between training and education. there's a real -- pushes people, high number of people to get their degrees in technical engineering fields. understandable when they're flying planes and operating nuclear reactors on submarines. when going to washington that is not what they're going to be doing any more. the military unfortunately doesn't differentiate between training and the education and in some cases they are governed by the same training education commands. give us metrics for what can we do, how can we do it better, how can we do it faster? education is not something we do quickly. it is something we need time to

read a book and think about. we are fighting a battle over what we are referring as calendar white space. any day that doesn't have something on the calendar is considered a wasted day. when you a dealing with the navy the party thinks any day not on a ship is a wasted day that is a problem. it is important to have time to read, synthesized, seminars and discuss. without the preliminary time, there's a tendency to say give me the answer and a high level of frustration among our student body when we can't give them an answer. the question is what should we do about syria? there is no easy answer. there is no single answer. we talk about the difference between puzzles and mysteries. puzzles, you can find the answer. worked at it long enough and you'll find answer. mysteries, maybe not.

you may never know. what we are trying to get our students to do is to be comfortable understanding that they will be dealing with problems that don't necessarily have these bottom-line says yes or no answers. i would like to read one more portion here. it is kind of long but this is the last one i will read and then we will move to q&a. it is very simply again, why i wrote the book and was i hope to get out of it. the purpose of this book is twofold, to familiarize the american public and decisions of the makers, specifically senior war college and incurred a discussion on how to improve the execution of their important mission. the latter purpose stems from the idea that there's always room for improvement before improvement can take place, the goal must be clear. whether the college bowls are clear and whether articulated

goals are supported by practices and processes is part of the discussion. admiral james provides a suggesting how to collation of his view of war college education goals at the 2011 national war college convocation by describing his own situation when he arrived at national in 1991. i knew what i was good at and what i knew well, driving a destroyer or cruiser, navigating through tight waters, leading a boarding party and payne, a leading sailors on the deck plates of a rolling ship but i also sense what i did not know or understand, global politics and strategy. the importance of the logistics nation. how the interagency community works. one of the levers of power and practice in the world. in essence how everything fits together in producing security for the united states and for

our partners. the goal of the war college should be to educate students in the areas they are not familiar with and take about of their comfort zones. and transitioning from career positions where tactical, austin technical skills lackey, beating infantry to positions requiring broader view of the role of the military and security affairs, including non technical non kinetic nature. global politics and grand strategy, areas with which the war college students are largely unfamiliar but for which some will be responsible in their future positions and others will support. too of an educational achievement in those areas is diluted. sacrifice for expedients at the nation's war college. that being the case america is neither getting what it is

paying for in the millions, billions, and you will be spent on the nation's war colleges, preparing its military leaders to fight wars and construct defenses for peace. admitted the the broad range of war college students interest abilities, intellectual bent, future jobs and missions a unique constraint of the military profession create challenges in professional military education not evident at civilian institutions. it also makes it even more important to continually strive for improvement. that will conclude my presentation with one more point. that is the knee-jerk reaction to the statement of these problems that i hear most often are too -- twofold. close the war colleges period. the second is close the war colleges and send these military officers to civilian academic

institutions. i would argue closing the war colleges is not a good idea. these students need these education more than ever. the environment is more complex, their need for strategic understanding in this complex environment more than ever. second the idea that we can just close the war colleges and send everyone to civilian academic institutions is untenable. we are talking thousands of students in year. we would want them to go to top schools with security studies programs but there aren't enough of those programs and not enough of those slots. without an appropriate program, courses might be relevant to somebody. but not to a military officer. so we don't want them just going to any school taking anything. one of the key benefits of the

war college to these students, and other branches of the military in other fields and they have an opportunity to talk with each other. the networking is a key part of their educational experience. i have had instances where i had two individuals from the navy, one an aviator, one a submariner sitting next to me and it is like someone talking from mars to someone talking to somebody from jupiter. they have no idea what the other does or what their world is like. if we want them to fight as a joint military which we do for a variety of reasons, capabilities and economics, we need them to understand each other and this would not be available in just any program anywhere. so the war colleges are important. we have to do a better job, the first step in doing this and

something i have been encouraging is i wrote my book based on personal experience. i had an opportunity because i was department chair to sit in on a lot of meetings and to hear a lot of things and a lot of power point slides. by the way, one of the most, one of the bleakest days as chair was sitting in on a presentation from a three star admiral who made the comment, gave us a comment about we need to strip all the gold plating out of our curriculum and when it ended a very sad looking captain turned to me and said are we told not to xl? that was a few years ago. last year i got a phone call from someone on the navy staffers said dr. johnson, we like your recommendation for how to improve the program. please keep in mind we don't need for rorys, we need fors. i would argue we need for oures but we need them at a ford cost.

the first thing we need to do is a study that validates or repeals what i have written in my book. our faculty, are we hiring the right faculty? are the goals stated, supported by policies and programs to support the goal? what is the situation? this needs to be done by an independent body. i was at a panel not long ago and former president of the army war college said i will head up the study and you have a vested interest in the results. we need an independent study to see where we are and where we need to go and i hope all of you will help me raise awareness to this. i feel no qualms in encouraging you to buy the book. i don't usually talk my own books but i do not only because of the subject of the matter but because i'm donating my royalties to the wounded warrior project. i don't get any money from it so i feel i can say pleas by the

book. with that i would like to open it up to questions. [applause] >> we are filming this. so if you could wait until we bring the mic to you. >> my question is, thank you very much for your academic excellence. my question is if you ever called other colleagues of yours, able minds of viewers to let them know this is what you want? excellence, mediocrity, what you are, put together in your book,

this would -- none of them would listen to me. i have to write this book because how far you don't, how far you work with academic artists, this is our curriculum. >> the question was basically how much have i talked to my colleagues has chair arguing the points i argue in the book. there was a, brian of us. a very small, credit tried hard to fight the hole could fight. don dot was the wind mill. admiral jake was very willing to listen, didn't always agree with us for go our way but was very willing to listen.

but quite frankly the majority of the faculty we dealt with were quite an entrenched in their positions and happy with the status quo. there is an expression my students taught me. bucs picked ducks. what does that mean? they said, for promotions, you are an aviator and everyone in the room is an aviator you're going to get promoted. if you are an aviator and everyone in the room is a submariner, ducks pick ducks. to apply that to the war college, when i came there was a high percentage of faculty members who were retired military, who did they hire? they hired military. that was a system they were happy with and comfortable with but there were instances, there were a couple of oz and try to

put forth programs, somebody said -- a colleague and i were arguing for of tenure system and someone said you don't need it in your system. does anyone in this room think somebody would get fired if you bumped the administration and two of us raise our hands. the rest of them looked at us like that is not right thing to say. i guess my answer is there were some of us who tried to but in order to get the message heard further and lauder, i wrote the book. question here. >> my colleague from the naval war college is a noted counterterrorism expert. a little afraid of his question. >> thank you for your cogent remarks. i find it incredibly fitting we're having this discussion ten years to the day after operation iraqi freedom where we are seeing a great deal of technical

operational excellence by the u.s. military but calling it anything other than a strategic failure would be kind. for it is easy to fall feed join the bush administration and civilian leadership but there were a lot of failures by senior military to think strategically. we had serious reform especially at the naval war college after vietnam in an effort to get it right next time. twofold question. do you think the climate is moving not only do to your work -- and the nearly 70s it took a good admiral much smaller institution. what would it take now? >> great question. to take in two parts, in 2005 when it was clear iraq was a

strategic failure, there was a mandate passed down dod wide, we got it in the educational institutions called -- everything is an acronym, countering ideological support for terrorism and it basically said we need to think on a broader strategic level. what that meant was in the very short period the size of our faculty grew exponentially and i was able to hire for the very first time an anthropologist, a religion specialist calfs, a counterterrorism specialist, a much wider range of civilian academics and i think that has not -- we are not passed the to been point. we have a geographer, quite a diverse range of faculty members, regional specialists. my area of space we have nuclear

experts and all kinds of a wide variety. we are over the tipping point in terms of the brett of the education. whether or not that will continue to evolve i think depends on the administrators not just of institutions because at the institutional level they deal with things like tenure and promotion process. is going to depend on those in the joint staff and whether or not anybody in congress starts paying attention to this issue. congressman ike skelton was always watching. the expression kids don't miss behave when they know their mom is watching, he is retired and the feedback that i get about this book and what is going on now is is just lawyers, pay no

attention. i hope congress takes up this flag and carries it forward to do this rather simple changes that need to be done. i would like your opinion. did i miss anything critical in my presentation for? >>. the one thing from the naval war college as you say, i am not saying this because i'm part of it too is the gold standard in cme for all the faults and we still have all these problems. i agree that none of this, we are not talking about much money at all in the budget. it is nothing literally. it is a question of will. it also has a lot to do with how important the services and congress, does it actually make

larger bowls? i don't think it can be emphasized enough that as long as there's a lack of rigor and forced on the students the message is at the end of the day. >> question? >> this is a clarification. i don't understand the full context. i understood you to say it is mandated by congress and these people are going from tactical military operations to washington which i assume means more policy. are people that do this selected from within their military units? my impression is it is not every service person that is going through this and i wonder what the selection process is and the

advancement and promotion afterwards. >> great questions. it is congressionally mandated that every military officer as they progress in receive the joint professional military education xii, the intermediate course and senior course but you are absolutely right that not everyone attends war college. the vast majority of the officers receive this through distance education program and there are many ways this distance education program is offered and there is basically an online cd-rom program which is as good as an online cd-rom program can be an fa -- different naval bases around the country they simulate what we do with the seminar and an

instructor in the classroom so you do have this interaction but the vast majority of the students because it is required for every one for them to get promoted a few years ago you could get waivers. if you were in a criminal position and you were a pilot you could say -- your commanding officer could say i need to joe smith in the needed for military education. the navy did that sell-off and they were called waiver babies and congress got wind of this and said enough. they have to get there j.p. m e. everybody had to get pushed through the pipeline very quickly and there was a lot of pressure on us as shares to figure out a way to get them through more quickly and this has been a lot of on line distance education programs that got started and i pretty well known i am going on a limb saying the air force clearly won

the battle of the race to the bottom for who could get the simplest program to get these people through fast enough. basically a program where you took the test until you got it right. that occurs less. we build some rigor into the program and the distance education program and free seminar programs are good. there is a program in washington, naval war college program that is very valuable. one of these free seminar programs, a very high percentage of congressional staffers learn whatever it is they know about security studies. many of them came out of oberlin college with a degree in literature and find themselves on the armed services committee and they take this distance education program and really get a strong background, a much stronger background than they

would otherwise so there is value to it but war college themselves, the way they got attended is by service. the air force and the army you attend a resident program based on selection with promotion and it varies by service but it is -- they sent their best and brightest as demonstrated by their operational jobs, not necessarily academics. for the navy on occasion the dragoon system still works. they find themselves on a ship on friday at the war college the following friday because they need to fill a seat. some of them quite frankly are annoyed at being there and don't like it. first day of class they say it is a waste of time but they will be leaving with their masters

degree. >> when you say congress do they have to pass legislation or is there a single individual somewhere to can sit in a closed room and make the changes? >> i wish i could give you a definitive answer to that. is my understanding and this is what my colleagues and i are working on that there have been proposals at the coordinating council to in fact bifurcate a master's degree and there's strong resistance to considering that by those who have a vested interest in the status quo or just because that is the way they have always done it. i don't know if the decision can actually be made there but i do know that if congress told him they wanted something done these organizations would get on it.

i don't know that it requires congress to initiate and approve it but i do know that congress could motivate and make it happen. any other questions? >> i want to follow up. the book is getting attention and there is congressional interest. what sense if you have any, how it is being received outside the very narrow halls of those who deeply care about this? as it gets talked about, what is your sense of the community as it were? >> it is getting more attention by faculty members. people are speaking out. when i wrote this book it was a taboo subject. there had been tweet to

individuals prior, one wrote a book and the other wrote a book chapter and again, they were victims of an ad hominem attacks, disgruntled employees. we need and no attention to them. i wrote this and since then i am pleased that there has been a proliferation of articles and comments and faculty members who are willing to speedup quite frankly because it is understood it is out. if you try to stifle faculty members for it will be viewed as retribution. in that way there is far more activity. at the institutional level, i think there is at least awareness that there are some lines that can't be crossed.

whimsical hirings are less. they are not gone but they are less. i increasingly see it as the problem is that these higher levels where they are tone deaf. one of the reviewers of my book said johnson freeze is willing to take on the echo chamber of military education and that sums it up at the higher levels. the big tipping point is if congress starts paying attention. >> i understood what you said about the need for education as people are moving to different focus of their career. from what you said about the flaws in the current system, how does the military sees this as an advantage to itself to leave

the status quo? >> there are many instances and this is a situation where sometimes rhetoric and action don't match. there's a lot of rhetoric about the support education but if you start to hire the brass, they are few and far between. there's a lot of rhetoric at higher levels about the importance of education and you start breaking that down, what they really mean is okay, we will allow as long as it is in a technical field. i talk about a former student in my book, probably one of the five best students i ever talked anywhere and i have had a long teaching career and he did two tours in iraq, army colonel and wanted to go on and get a doctorate and was told by the army he could do that but only if he got a job or a got a

degree in engineering and needed to be aware it would hurt his career in the army so the value of education again, the rhetoric and the action don't match. in the navy i mentioned to any day you are not at sea is a wasted day, there are many admirals is still feel that way. they believed a military officer can learn more by working with him directly than by sitting in a classroom and being tossed by civilian academics, they see us as if the rebound in heads is the expression i have heard more than once. whether or not they see it as a value i am not sure they do. one of the mandate i got most often as chair, speed up the

course. make it shorter. ten month. we can't spare them for ten months. can't you get it done in four months? this is where we got the white space argument. they have every afternoon office. if we had been in class from a:00 to 5:00 instead of ten monthly to do in five. that is training, not education. booking up every day is not education. in the back. >> ever increasing global world, i am not sure how much research, what possibly we could gain contrasting and comparing the foreign military education to improve our own military. >> several people have worked on this field of military

education. we worked on it ourselves. one of the programs we have at the naval war college that i am proud of this engagement program with the other war colleges around the world where we work with them, helping them set a curriculum and give lectures. dr. schindler and i work in colombia many times. i have been everywhere from ethiopia to uruguay to south africa. the thing is most countries build their military education programs based on hours. we are the model. the british have a different system and other countries do a slight variation. the general will of thumb is the model is the united states. much of latin america you will find neighbor war college curriculum translated into spanish. there are strong points about

that. in ethiopia for example, we weren't there, a group of faculty members, we were helping them develop a curriculum and noticed everyone was carrying boxes everywhere. we ask what was going on, they're moving to a new building and a pointed out the new building was built by the chinese. but the chinese were building the building and the united states was providing the curriculum. that is a pretty good deal. that is the way we ought to do it. most of the programs are built on our model and the value is substantial to have someone like john sheehan they're talking to the colombians about counterterrorism. is important for them and i suspect you learn from them as well.